This February, The Ridings will join forces with Wakefield Council and other city partners to turn Wakefield pink for three days in honour of its favourite vegetable Rhubarb, from Friday 17th-Sun 19th February 2023.
There are lots of different things such as: food and drink market, entertainment and workshops, chef demos, fringe activity, let’s make rhubarb crumble.
Here is some information on all of these:
Food and drink market where there’s a selection of food and drink from over 60 traders, with local and regional delights. There’s chocolate from Cocoa Drop, hand made fudge by Forever Fudge, big marshmallows from Malvavisco, artisan brownies from Gourmet Brownie Company and much more.
There’s cheese and wine from Cryer & Stott, The Cheesboard bringing cheeses from all over the world to Wakefield, Luddenden Valley Wines has wines for the accompaniment.
Also, there’s beers, ciders and other beverages, pies, pasties, plant based food and E Oldroyd and Sons with pies, chutneys, jams and rhubarb to take home.
Entertainment wise there’s flat cap dancers on Friday 17th and Saturday 18th Feb from 11:30am to 5pm in different slots, morris dancers Sat 18th in mainly the Trinity Walk and Precinct from 11am to 3:30pm, ruby rhubarb will be across the city centre all weekend.
Workshops and activities for families include: Activities by Be Amazing Arts on the precinct on Friday 17th and Saturday 18th 10am-5pm on Friday and 10am-4pm on Saturday.
Activities at Treacy Hall next to the Cathedral all weekend on Friday and Saturday 11am-3pm and Sunday 11am-2pm.
Free activities include:
- Decorating cupcakes
- Pin the leaf on the rhubarb
- Fondant modelling
- Guess the vegetable
- Quiz
Chef Demos
For those people interested in cooking, or learning to cook something new , there is a new programme of chef demos curated by Yorkshire Food Guide. The demos will run every hour from 11am-3pm and include: Karen Wright, Bobby Geetha and Heather.
Chef Rü – MasterChef finalist
West Yorkshire’s Radha Kaushal-Bolland AKA Chef Rü love for all things food took her through to the finals of BBC’s MasterChef in 2021. Radha then made the leap into the world as a private chef. Specialising in vegetarian Indian fine dining. Chef Ru has also furthered her experience with collaborations with some of Yorkshire’s very best Michelin recommended Restaurants and Hotels.
Bobby Geetha – Great British Menu & MasterChef the Professionals
Indian Chef Bobby Geetha has decades of experience in high end 5-star luxury hotel kitchens. Bobby is the author of five cook books on Fine Dining Indian cuisine series and the founder of Finediningindian.com website on next generation Indian cuisine. He is the highly rated finalist in BBC’s Master Chef UK Professionals, Bobby also represented the Northeast & Yorkshire with his appearance on BBC’s Great British Menu in 2021. Bobby is the chef-owner of Leeds foodie favourite, Fleur, restaurant and bar.
Crystelle Pereira – Great British Bake Off 2021 finalist
Crystelle is a baker who brings her wonderfully diverse heritage – born in northwest London to Kenyan born, Portuguese-Goan parents – to the flavours in her baking. She began baking seriously only three years ago and loves fusing spices from the places she’s visited into her bakes – a fougasse infused with turmeric, curry powder and spring onion is a firm favourite.
The full chef line up is as follows:
Friday 17th Feb
11am- Karen Wright
12pm- Chef Ru
1pm – Bobby Geetha plus BSL interpreter
2pm – Chef Ru plus BSL interpreter
Sat 17th Feb
11.00am – Crystelle Pereira
12.00pm – Heather (Farmer Copleys)
1.00pm – Crystelle Pereira (+ BSL Interpreter)
2.00pm – TET (+ BSL Interpreter)
Sun 19th Feb
11.00am – Karen Wright
12.00pm – Crows Rest
2.00pm – IRIS (+ BSL Interpreter)
Rhubar and Street food
As well as the 60 people showcasing their delights, there will also be caterers onsite for visitors who are wanting their taste buds tickled, such as:
Yorkshire Crepe Company- goats cheese, roasted red peppers, rhubarb chutney and rocket crepe .
Working streets will be big burgers with rhubarb chutney
Northwest Game are selling wild duck breast with caramelised onion and spiced rhubarb chutney
Rhubar makes its return with a choice of alcoholic and non alcoholic drinks.
There is also live music from Rhubarb Jam at Rhubar including:
Rum doodle
Haley Gravenick
Daisy Dorothy
The rhubar open from 10am-5pm Friday and Saturday 17th and 18th Feb and 10am-4pm on Sun 19th Feb.
Fringe activity
Ranging from free face painting at the Ridings to crafts at Wakefield Cathedral, this year’s Rhubarb Festival has lots of fringe activities to enjoy.
Rhubarb Festival at the Ridings:
Specialist craft fayre- All weekend 10am-4pm
Cooking demos by Karen Wright- selected times on Friday 17th Feb
Free face painting – Sun 19th Feb 11am-3pm
Rhubarb fest at Cathedral
Free drop in arts and crafts activities on Fri 17th Feb 10am-3pm
All other info about more things happening is at this link:
The best thing about it is it’s free and family friendly
